Six new business insights from MIT Sloan Management Review

Why blockchain matters to you, how to use AI to improve employee performance, and more from the magazine.

By Zach Church |
April 4, 2017

"Smarter machines can — and should — be keys to unlocking greater returns from human capital," writes Michael Schrage, MIT Sloan research fellow.

For nearly 60 years, executives have turned to MIT Sloan Management Review for critical insight into management practices, especially those driven by technology. This quarter, MIT Sloan faculty members and researchers took up the blockchain hype, artificial intelligence disruption, monetizing data, and the most underrated skill in management.

With new digital technologies, managers and employees can build more productive, more valuable versions of themselves, writes MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy Research Fellow Michael Schrage. Read more here.

In reducing the cost of verifying information and exchanging value within a network, blockchain technology offers opportunity in every industry, not just banking, according to MIT Sloan Assistant Professor Christian Catalini. Read more here.

Spoiler alert: It’s problem formation. In this longform article (save it for your next flight or commute) the authors — an MIT Sloan professor, a lecturer, and an alumnus — outline steps to better formulate problems before undertaking change. Read more here.

The solution to confronting economic disruption from artificial intelligence isn’t to “protect the past from the future,” writes MIT Sloan Professor Erik Brynjolfsson. Instead, leaders should “adopt emerging tools and models that not only create goods and services, but overall prosperity.” Read more here.

MIT Sloan Management Review is conducting a survey on strategy and artificial intelligence. Take the survey. Results will be announced later this year.

Viral memes are fun, but so far social media has proven more effective at temporary mobilization than at long-lasting change. How can businesses use social media for long-term benefits? By MIT Sloan Professor Alex “Sandy” Pentland, MIT Media Lab Associate Professor Iyad Rahwan, and Manuel Cebrian of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia. Read more here.

So you have big data. How do you make money with it? The authors — including Jeanne Ross of the MIT Center for Information Systems Research — identify three approaches to monetizing data, detailing each and arguing that companies focus on a single, most promising, approach. Read more here.